Backward, Dumb and Violent Hillbillies? Rural

Geographies and Intersectional Studies on

Intimate Partner Violence

Linn Sandberg

Linköping University Post Print

N.B.: When citing this work, cite the original article.

Original Publication:

Linn Sandberg, Backward, Dumb and Violent Hillbillies? Rural Geographies and

Intersectional Studies on Intimate Partner Violence, 2013, Affilia, (28), 4, 350-365.

http://dx.doi.org/

Copyright: SAGE Publications (UK and US)

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Postprint available at: Linköping University Electronic Press

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Abstract:

Urban and rural geographies should be further included in feminist intersectional research on

intimate partner violence. The article reviews existing research on the challenges facing rural

victims of IPV. This research makes visible the specific problems rurality imposes on victims of

IPV. However, research on rural IPV risks being misused and subsequently reinforcing othering

and stereotypes of rurality and rural inhabitants. The article suggests that researchers alternate

between intra- and anti- categorical approaches. On the one hand rural victims of IPV should be

analysed as a neglected point of intersection, and on the other the diversity of ruralities should be

acknowledged.

Feminist researchers on violence have made major contributions by highlighting the home as the

site of violence, and as anything but a safe place for many women and children. As such, place

has played a central role in feminist scholarship on violence. Still, discussions of place are

missing in feminist violence research insofar as there is little discussion on the differences

between urban and rural localities as the place or context of violence. This is surprising, given the

impact of theories on intersectionality within interdisciplinary feminist research. Intersectionality

refers to how gender is intrinsically linked to and mutually constituted with other forms of

oppression and social locations, for example class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, age, religion and

disability (Lykke, 2010; Mehrotra, 2010). Experiences of violence have been particularly

important in theorizing on intersectionality. In her seminal article, “Mapping the Margins:

Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color” (1991), Kimberlé

Crenshaw writes about the interconnectedness of race and gender in women of colour’s

experiences of violence. Her work has since been carried forward by others, and there is now a

considerable bulk of discussion on the need for intersectional approaches to intimate partner

violence (IPV), particularly in terms of race and ethnicity but also to some extent with regard to

age, disability, class and sexuality (Bograd, 1999; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). However, rural and

urban geographies are seldom discussed as relevant to intersectional studies in general or studies

of IPV in particular.

In this article I argue that there is a need for feminist research on IPV to take discussions

on intersectionality further by including place and rural/urban geographies as social locations,

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which impacts on experiences of violence. As Maria Matsuda (1991, p. 1189) has suggested

concerning intersectional analysis, it is important to “ask the other question”, to continuously

investigate what the blind spots of the current analysis are. Rural/urban geographies could be one

such blind spot that requires further interrogation.

Although researchers on rural IPV, mainly from North America and Australia, have for two

decades pointed to the adversities facing rural victims of violence (Wendt, 2009), this is still a

relatively understudied topic. Pruitt (2008) argues that there is an urban norm in violence

research. This norm implies, firstly, that research on IPV perpetrated in urban areas is not

discussed in terms of space and place, and secondly, that urban research is assumed to be

generalizable to cases outside urban areas as well (Pruitt 2008). As a consequence, the differences

that exist between urban and rural regions and the specific conditions and problems rural victims

of IPV face are obscured. Existing and future studies on rural IPV are thus of great importance to

make visible the experiences of victims and increase the knowledge of how they may or may not

exit abusive relationships.

The aim of this article is to discuss place and rural and urban geographies as important to

feminist and intersectional studies on violence. But the aim is also to discuss how highlighting

rural IPV may contribute to the othering of rurality – reinforcing images and perceptions of rural

locations and rural inhabitants as deviant – something that may further marginalize rural victims

of IPV. Overall, the objective of the article is to forge a theoretical and conceptual discussion on

the relevance of thinking through regional geographies. I use IPV as a specific and significant

case within feminist social work here, but my argument could be considered relevant for other

fields within social work also.

Mehrotra (2010) argues that feminist intersectional social work in a global context must

increasingly incorporate discussions on migration, diaspora and nationality into analyses. In this

article I suggest that feminist intersectional social work must also think from the local: the

meanings of local geographies and how this impacts on our analyses. Postcolonial scholarship has

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pointed to how geographies and places are intertwined with power asymmetries in a globalized

world, not least how Western power-knowledge regimes are imposed on so-called Third World

countries (Minh-ha, 1986/1987; Mohanty, 1984; Said, 1993 [1978]; Spivak, 1988) There is

considerably less discussion, however, of how urban and rural are not only neutral descriptions of

territories but are also linked to power as well as social inclusion and exclusion. Not only are

rural regions often socio-economically disadvantaged vis-à-vis urban ones, but the links between

urban and centre on the one hand and rural and periphery on the other also influence on what

perspectives and voices are heard, I argue. This needs to be further acknowledged, as it impacts

on how to understand and research IPV in different rural regions.

I start by outlining and reviewing literature on rural IPV and the strong themes within this

research. This is not a systematic review but a way to give readers who are unfamiliar with

existing scholarship on rural IPV an idea of the specificities and challenges that confront rural

victims of IPV and, consequently, why intersectional analyses of IPV need to consider geography

and local place. I continue by considering how discussions on the specificities of place and

violence carry an evident risk of othering and of locating violence somewhere else, in places and

people imagined to be different from ‘us’. In this argument, I draw on some insights from

postcolonial and antiracist scholarship and note parallels between this field and rural geography. I

conclude that research on rural IPV must alternate between intra- and anti-categorical

approaches, that is, between analyses which highlight rural victims as located in a neglected

intersection and analyses which deconstruct and challenge urban/rural categories. Existing

research on rural IPV has focused primarily on rurality as a material and physical place, but rural

place also needs to be considered as a discursive construct.

Before outlining existing research and venturing into a discussion on the risks of

reinforcing rural inhabitants as “’internal others’” (Eriksson 2010, p. 96) and how to avoid this, I

will clarify some terms and definitions used in the article. I will also locate myself in the text by

describing some aspects of my background and academic context.

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Defining IPV, defining rurality, defining my positions

In terms of the terminology of the article, I use the term intimate partner violence

(abbreviated as IPV throughout the article) to refer to violence between individuals who are, or

have been, in an intimate relationship, co-habiting and non-cohabiting (Basile & Black, 2011).

Globally, this violence is mainly perpetrated by men against women, and for this reason I

sometimes refer to victims as women and perpetrators as men, although IPV can also have

women as perpetrators and can occur in same-sex relationships (Basil & Black, 2011; Rothman,

Butchart & Cerdá, 2003). Along with Basile & Black (2011, p. 112-113), my definition of IPV

does not exclusively involve physical violence but also sexual and emotional/psychological

violence, as well as threats of violence and stalking.i

Besides IPV, rural is the term which recurs most frequently in this article. Using this term

is not wholly uncomplicated, however. As will become clear in the course of the article I believe

there is a need for more location-specific, nuanced discussion on ruralities. This involves

acknowledging rurality as “considerably more unstable, diverse, contested and fragmented a

phenomenon than commonly perceived” and exploring “the culture of particular rural

communities” rather than unitary notions of rural culture (Hogg & Carrington, 2003, p. 295;

Wendt, 2009, p. 177). Accordingly, stable and universalized definitions of rural/rurality are

difficult to make. In the literature on rural IPV, a recurring definition of rurality is that of a

sparsely populated region with low population density. Although there may be variations in

geographical distances and population densities that define rurality in different national contexts,

this is the generalized understanding of rurality I use in the article (Pruitt, 2008).

The backdrop of my argument is a Swedish context, which has implications on how

rurality and IPV are both understood and conceptualized. Sweden is internationally renowned for

its politics and policies on gender equality, and is ranked number one in the 2011 UN Gender

inquality index (http://data.un.org/DocumentData.aspx?q=HDI&id=273). Gender equality has

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emerged as a pervasive discourse in Sweden, and the combating of men’s violence against

women has become a significant part of the gender equality project as well as a serious social

issue (although this happened rather late, in the 1990s) (Hearn et al., 2012; Wendt Höjer, 2002).

There is a great discrepancy between the public discourse on violence against women as

unacceptable and the continued prevalence of IPV. There is presently no research on the

prevalence of IPV in rural Sweden and the experiences of Swedish rural victims of IPV.

The Swedish context of my writing will also be noticeable in my discussions of the risks

of reinforcing negative stereotypes of rural place. The rural idyll is an influential discourse in a

Nordic context, like in many other contexts (Gunnerud Berg & Forsberg, 2003). In the Swedish

context the rural idyll is strongly connected to nature and the beauty of the Swedish countryside,

which are closely tied to the Swedish national self-image. Still, alongside this discourse on rural

Sweden as beautiful and peaceful (and by implication non-violent), another discourse on rurality

exists: that of rurality as backward and non-progressive. In this discourse rural residents emerge

as backward, narrow-minded and traditional (Dahl, 2004; Eriksson, 2010; Stenbacka, 2011). This

can be compared to stereotypes of the American hillbilly, representing people of the country as

dumb and backward (DeKeseredy & Schwarz, 2009). My own situatedness is also relevant here,

as I grew up in a rural village in Sweden.

My background is in interdisciplinary gender studies, and consequently I move between

many different disciplines and fields of knowledge. In this article I use work emerging from rural

studies, feminist studies and research on intimate partner violence to ask how insights from these

different but sometimes overlapping fields may inform each other.

Central themes in research on rural IPV

When it comes to the scope of the problem, there are contradictory findings on the

prevalence of rural IPV in existing research. Pruitt (2008, p.349f), for example, refers to U.S.

research suggesting that “arrests for crimes against family members were four times higher in

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rural locations than in the largest metropolitan cities”(citing Weisheit, Falcone & Wells, 2006).

However, other studies from the United and Canada, both older and more recent, suggest that the

rates of IPV are similar in rural and urban locations (e.g. Bachman, 1994; Bachman & Saltzman,

1995; Brownridge, 2009). Existing research employs both qualitative and quantitative

approaches. The work discussed in this article include statistical analyses based on surveys on

experiences of rural IPV both among victims themselves and service providers (Bosch & Bergen,

2006; Brownridge, 2009; Eastman & Bunch, 2007; Grossman, Hinkley, Kawalski & Margrave,

2005; Lanier & Maume, 2009; Logan, Walker, Cole, Ratliff, & Leukefeld, 2003; Logan,

Stevenson, Evans, & Leukefeld, C. (2004); Peek-Asa et al., 2011; Shannon, Logan, Cole &

Medley, 2006) and studies that use qualitative ethnographic and interview methodologies (Davis,

Taylor & Furniss, 2000; DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2009; Shepherd, 2001; Websdale, 1998,

Websdale & Johnson, 1997; Wendt, 2009) I also refer to some significant reviews on rural IPV

(Adler 1996; Grama 2000; Pruitt 2008). Existing research is predominantly from the United

states, Canada and Australia and little discussion exist on the cultural and contextual variability in

cases of rural IPV.ii

Geographical isolation exacerbating overall isolation

As pointed to earlier, the most common definition of rurality in studies on rural IPV is as

sparsely populated regions with low population density. The impact of geographic isolation on

rural inhabitants is often posited as a very significant and profound difference between IPV in

urban and rural locations (Adler, 1996; Davis, Taylor & Furniss, 2001; DeKeseredy & Schwartz,

2009; Grama, 2000; Pruitt, 2008; Websdale, 1998). Isolation, including emotional, social and

physical isolation, is a central issue to victims of IPV, not only in rural areas but everywhere. Yet,

the geographical isolation that rurality implies tends to exacerbate other forms isolation in cases

of IPV. Lanier & Maume (2009, p. 1322), discuss geographical isolation and social isolation as a

“double-edged sword to rural women”. In their study, the social support of family and friends

proved to be more important to rural women for avoiding being victimized by IPV. Research by

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Brownridge (2009) suggests, however, that rural victims of IPV were less likely to confide in

someone in their social networks. Some abusers move to geographically distant locations to

further isolate their abused partner from social networks of family, friends and co-workers

(Grama, 2000; DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2009; Pruitt, 2008). This may contribute to additional

emotional isolation and feelings of hopelessness, which further reduce the victim’s possibilities to

exit the relationship. Distance to neighbours also implies fewer chances that someone will

hear/see and intervene, and offers nowhere to escape in an acute situation.

Some victims of IPV in rural areas are vulnerable both from geographical isolation and

from the marginalizing effects of, for example, race, ethnicity, disability or immigrant status

(Grossman, Hinkley, Kawalski & Margrave, 2005; Shepherd, 2001). Immigrant women may be

particularly vulnerable if they are dependent on their abuser for continued residence (Adler,

1996).

The spatial difference is a marked difference between rural and urban locations, and the

geographical distances of rural areas and the isolation this often involves probably comprise the

single condition or factor that is generalizable to ruralities of very different contexts. It is

probably also, in the words of Grama (2000, p. 177), “the most fundamental difficulty facing the

rural battered woman” and which impacts on several other aspects of living in a relationship with

violence. The material realities of rural life may worsen geographical isolation. Living in a rural

location with no access to a car or public transportation, and where weather conditions can be

harsh, may then imply few possibilities to leave one’s abuser (Peek-Asa et al., 2011; Shepherd,

2001). Poverty in rural regions could include a lack of infrastructure, such as transport

inadequacies and road conditions (Adler, 1996; Grama, 2000, Shepherd; 2001), this leads us on to

another important theme within research on IPV and rurality: socio-economic disadvantages of

rural areas.

Socio-economic disadvantage and lack of effective services

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Several researchers on rural IPV point to how rural areas may be socio-economically

disadvantaged in comparison to urban regions, and how this may effect both the occurrence of

IPV and the possible responses. As physical, sexual and emotional abuse is often combined with

economic abuse, victims of IPV are often faced with economic problems. Lack of money and

jobs in rural areas may then compound with geographical isolation and hinder victims from

exiting abusive relationships (Logan, Walker, Cole, Ratliff, & Leukefeld, 2003; Pruitt, 2008).

The combination of the distances and socio-economic disadvantages of rural areas means

less access to effective services and information for rural victims of IPV. Lack of services in rural

locations includes the lack of social services, police, courts and shelters, which are often of great

significance to victims of IPV. The lack of social services can be seen as particularly detrimental

in the light of a study by US researchers Grossman, Hinkley, Kawalski & Margrave (2005), who

suggest that rural victims of domestic abuse were in greater need of services than their urban

counterparts. Similarly, in a study by Eastman & Bunch (2007) on social workers’ perceptions of

domestic violence in rural localities, the social workers experienced that their clients needed more

services. In this study, however, the rural community held limited resources and the social

workers often had multiple roles when working with clients.

The socio-economic conditions of rural regions combined with the geographical distances

have consequences not least for law enforcement (Brownridge, 2009). US research has indicated

that it takes longer for police to arrive, and that it is more likely that they will not show up at all,

in cases of domestic violence in rural areas (Websdale & Johnson, 1997). Rural police, as well as

lawyers, local courts, judges and social services, may also have less specialized training in

dealing with cases of IPV and are often restrained by a lack of resources (Pruitt, 2008; Grama,

2000; Shepherd, 2001).

Moreover, the lack of health services in rural locations may have major consequences on

the health of victims of IPV and may even increase the risk of intimate partner homicide. In an

analysis of FBI homicide reports from 1980 and onwards, Gallup-Black (2005) shows that

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intimate partner and family murder increased with rurality. Gallup-Black argues that the

inaccessibility to health services may be understood as one explanation for the higher murder

rates, as assaults led to death due to a lack of immediate and adequate medical care.

Socio-economic disadvantages of rural regions also impact on voluntary services. Shelters

are scarcer in rural regions, and those that do exist are dependent on fewer people to volunteer in

a small community, and are more vulnerable due to a lack of funding (Adler, 1996; Grama,

2000). US health researchers Peek-Asa et al. (2011) conducted a cross-sectional survey

inventorying and mapping domestic violence intervention programmes (DVIP), and report that

rural victims of violence had three times greater distances to the nearest IPV resources and that

rural programmes served more counties and had fewer on-site shelter services. They conclude

that: “an increased focus on access to preventive services, including DVIP resources, is critically

needed” (Peek-Asa et al. 2011, p. 1748).

The socio-economic disadvantages facing rural regions in comparison to urban

counterparts are evidently empirical questions that need investigation in different and specific

contexts. However, thinking of urban/rural in terms of power asymmetries should also involve

discussions of how the rural/urban intersects socio-economic conditions: class and poverty. The

extent to which rural regions are economically disadvantaged in relation to urban locations, and

how this impacts on prevention and intervention against IPV, are questions that need to be further

addressed.

Lack of anonymity in the small community

Although living in rural communities can involve great isolation, not least for victims of

IPV, the rural community may at the same time paradoxically also imply less privacy. Several

studies on rural IPV suggest that the social control of the smaller community in a sparsely

populated area may lead to less privacy and to having to deal with the stigma of being abused (or

an abuser) in a community where everyone knows who you are (Adler 1996; DeKeseredy &

Schwartz, 2009; Grama, 2000; Pruitt, 2008; Websdale, 1998; Wendt, 2009). Wendt (2009)

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discusses how “gossip networks” may hinder women from revealing their situation or seeking

help in the community (also Brownridge, 2009). If one reports the violence it could, for example,

end up in the only newspaper in the community or on the local radio station, and subsequently be

picked up by local people who can easily discern who the involved parties are (Adler, 1996).

When seeking help and formal support in the small community, victims are also more

likely to encounter someone they know at the social services, with the police or at the local health

station (Adler, 1996; Websdale & Johnson, 1997; Websdale, 1998). The police may be friends

with the abuser, the social worker could be the mother of your children’s friends, or the local

nurse could be a friend from church. Confidentiality may thus be a greater issue in the rural

community, and victims may avoid seeking help if they know they will encounter someone they

know in formal, official support services. Research also points to how the small community with

its lack of anonymity also makes it difficult to escape the abuser. Safe houses are difficult to keep

secret and can be tracked down, which makes the safety of rural women a major issue (Adler,

1996; Davis, Taylor & Furniss, 2001; Grama, 2000).

That people in a small community know each other is often discussed and understood in

positive terms as “social cohesion” and as offering the potential to help each other and prevent

crime (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2009). DeKeseredy & Schwarz (2009, p. 6) assert that US media

representations often depict rural people as “nicer to each other than urban residents are”. The

idea of the cohesion of the rural community is related to the idea of rural areas as more peaceful,

idyllic and safe. However, discourses on the idyllic and peaceful rurality where people help each

other are at odds with the experiences of rural victims of IPV. DeKeseredy and Schwartz’s (2009)

study on IPV in rural Appalachia in the US suggests that rural residents are not more likely to

help each other in cases of violence in the family. In contrast to other situations of crime in rural

areas, for example vandalism, where the fact that people know each other can operate as a social

control to be preventive and where the community might mobilize, this does not seem to be the

case in relation to IPV (also Websdale, 1998). Rather, as Wendt (2009) points to, discourses on

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the close-knit community and the rural idyll sometimes hindered the women in her Australian

study from seeking help and assistance, because they did not want to reveal the abuse to the

community. Bosch & Bergen (2006, p. 312), researching the support networks of rural victims of

IPV, point to how social networks that were responsive to other life events were less responsive

in cases of IPV, which was experienced as causing “discomfort” or “disapproval”. The idea of

social cohesion in the small community where people help each other out could thus further

alienate and be confusing to victims of IPV when the community did not act upon the violence

despite having knowledge of it (Wendt, 2009).

Studies on IPV in rural areas point to how privacy is often valued in rural communities,

and how the knowledge of violence was thus something that should be kept in the family (Wendt,

2009). I believe, however, that attitudes and feelings about privacy may vary between rural

communities; hence this also needs to be studied empirically in different contexts. Still, as

opposed to people in an urban context, rural victims of IPV are generally more geographically

isolated while at the same time often less anonymous in the rural community, a complex and

paradoxical situation that needs to be considered by researchers.

IPV and the rural community - strengths and weaknesses of an intra-categorical

approach

What is perhaps the greatest strength of existing research, as discussed above, is how it

makes visible the experiences of rural victims of violence, as a largely invisible group within

research and policy. In her thorough review and discussion of IPV in rural regions, Pruitt (2008)

argues that the missing discussion on the conditions of rural IPV and on the relevance of place in

research on IPV is a reflection of an urban norm that privileges the urban outlook. Websdale

(1998) and DeKeseredy & Schwartz (2009) argue along the same lines, stating that rural crime is

given little attention, which may be a result of a common understanding of rural areas as non-

problematic and peaceful in comparison to the crime rates of urban locations. In this argument,

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the conception of violence as a problem of the city obfuscates the experiences of rural victims of

abuse (also Adler, 1996; Grama, 2000; Wendt, 2009). The invisibility of rural victims of violence

has consequently been one of the primary motivations for researchers to focus on rural IPV.

None of the studies discussed above on rural IPV explicitly use the word intersectionality.

However, they could be understood as examples of “implicit intersectional analyses”, which do

not engage in “meta-theoretical reflections on ‘intersectionality’” but still focus intersections of

gender and rurality (and sometimes also class, ethnicity, race) in studies of IPV (Lykke, 2010, p.

76). Drawing on McCall’s (2005) outlining of three different methodological approaches to

intersectionality, the above studies could be conceptualised as having an “intra-categorical

approach”. This approach is often referred to as the position adopted by feminists of colour

(Lykke, 2010; Mehrotra, 2010), and retains categories for strategic purposes, to analyse

“particular groups at neglected points of intersection” (McCall 2005, p. 1774). This description is

applicable to studies of rural IPV, for which the invisibility and neglect of rural victims is a

recurring motivation to research these issues (Adler, 1996; Dekeseredy & Schwartz, 2009; Pruitt,

2008; Websdale, 1998). Similarly to how black feminists have pointed to the need to recognize

the interconnectedness of race and gender in women of colour’s experiences of violence, it is

possible to argue that the experiences of rural victims of abuse must be understood through the

interconnectedness of gender and rural geography, which sometimes compound with experiences

of poverty.

One of the limitations of existing research on rural IPV is, however, that the meaning of

rurality is rarely problematized and that urban/rural are often treated as discrete and pre-existing

categories in a rather realist fashion. This is particularly the case in quantitative studies. Although

the heterogeneity of rural regions is sometimes acknowledged (e.g. Shannon, Logan, Cole &

Medley, 2006), these acknowledgments warrant no discussion on how we as researchers also

shape research categories such as urban or rural. Nor do these acknowledgments lead to

discussions on how geographies cannot only be treated as material physical places but as

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discursive constructs imbued with various (unstable) meanings and associations. Next I will

therefor argue for the need for intersectional analyses of rural IPV that are not only “intra-

categorical”, highlighting rurality as a blind spot in violence research, but also “anti-categorical”.

Following McCall (2005) the anti-categorical approach involves the critique and deconstruction

of categories, based on an epistemological position whereby categories are linked to normative

and oppressive structures. I will suggest that an uncritical use of the category rural in studies of

IPV may contribute to the othering of rurality where negative stereotypes of “backward, dumb

and violent hillbillies” are reproduced.

Avoiding the othering of rurality – Towards an anti-categorical approach

In their article on domestic violence and intersections of class, race and gender, Sokoloff

& Dupont (2005) argue that one of the challenges researchers face is to represent marginalized

women in ways that do not further marginalize and disadvantage them. This is a worthwhile point

to consider in research and policy work on rural victims of IPV as well. In this part of the article,

I will argue that singling out rural violence carries risks of feeding into negative and stereotypical

discourses on rurality. By drawing parallels to postcolonial and anti-racist scholarship I will

discuss how research highlighting IPV in rural regions may contribute to the othering of rurality,

turning these regions into inherently problematic and non-progressive geographies. My

discussion will concentrate on assertions of “rural patriarchy” and “crisis in the rural gender

order” as often-used explanations for violence.

By using the term othering in my discussion, I relate to the seminal work of postcolonial

theorist Edvard Said (1993 [1978]) on the Orient. Said argues that the positioning of the Orient as

inferior and fundamentally different in Western thought is central to the construction and

definition of the West. Processes of othering thereby involve the constitution of the self through

the differentiation and repudiation of an imagined Other. Subsequent work has since expanded

Said’s theorizing to also discuss the divisions within regions and nations (cf. Eriksson, 2010).

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Scholarship on postcolonialism has been preoccupied with geo-politics related to colonialism and

how geographical positioning matters to humans’ economic and political situation (Landström,

2001). But there is also a small body of work on more local and national geographies and how

these relate to power relations. Similarly to how discourses on the Orient function to shape the

West as civilized, modern and exalted, the positioning of some regions within a nation as

problematic may function to shape national identity (Eriksson, 2008; 2010; Jansson, 2003; 2005

Johnson & Coleman, 2012). Eriksson (2010), for example, discusses how the region of the rural

North emerges as an internal other in Sweden.

In existing literature rural IPV is recurrently discussed and made sense of in relation to

specific rural gender relations as well as to a “rural patriarchy”. An early influence on discussions

on IPV and rural patriarchy was Websdale’s (1998) study on rural Kentucky women, where he

points to the need to address the specificities of rural patriarchies as contexts in which the

violence occurs. Drawing on Walby’s theories on public versus private patriarchies, in which

rural patriarchies are discussed as private and based on household production, Websdale (1998, p.

48) states:

By rural patriarchy I am referring to that articulation of patriarchy found

distinctively in rural areas. Put specifically, the relatively autonomous structures

referred to by Walby (the patriarchal household; paid work; the patriarchal state;

patriarchal culture; patriarchal sexuality; and male violence) manifest themselves

differently in rural areas, although these structures still constitute a readily

discernible set of gender power relations.

Several subsequent studies on rural IPV employ Websdale’s theories on rural patriarchy, pointing

to traditionalism and stereotypical gender relations in rural regions as contexts and explanations

for the violence (Brownridge, 2009; DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2009; Eastman, Bunch, Williams

& Carawan, 2007; Pruitt, 2008; Sudderth, 2006). DeKeseredy & Schwartz (2009, p.13), for

example, discuss the existence of “a powerful ol’ boys network” whereby men in the local rural

15

community support and condone the violence of other local men. These networks can also

involve local police officers and other officials who are friends with the abuser and therefore do

not interfere. DeKeseredy & Schwartz (2009, p. 11) discuss this in terms of “non-intervention

norms” in the rural community researched. The need to research violence towards rural women is

thus motivated based on their specific vulnerability to male power in the rural community where

everyone may know each other, as discussed earlier.

An interlinked discussion to that of IPV and the rural patriarchy is that of a “crisis in the

rural gender order” as a presumed cause of IPV in rural regions (Hogg & Carrington 2006, p. 181

cited in DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2009). In an article on rurality, masculinity and violence,

Australian researchers Carrington & Scott (2008) discuss how rural masculinity has historically

been associated with nature, authenticity and brute force, and how the rural man has as such been

valorized as a more “real” kind of man. They argue, however, that more recent socio-economic

changes have contributed to increasing struggles of rural men, understood as unable to keep up

with societal changes, which has contributed to the denigration and marginalization of rural

masculinity. DeKeseredy & Schwartz (2009, p.99) take the arguments of Carrington & Scott

further by discussing rural men’s violence in relation to a “masculinity crisis/male peer support

theory of separation and divorce sexual assault” (also Hogg & Carrington, 2006). Men’s violence

towards their intimate partners in rural regions is made sense of here as a consequence of rural

social and economic transitions, diminishing the traditional power of rural men. DeKeseredy &

Schwartz (2009, p.101) argue that “a sizeable portion of unemployed rural men who strongly

adhere to the ideology if familial patriarchy compensate for their lack of economic power by

exerting more control over their wives.” Men’s violence towards their intimate partners is thus

made sense of as a result of economic transition whereby men are losing their former positions

and power.

It may well be the case that there were particular patriarchal gender relations in the

contexts studied by Websdale (1998) and others, and as a feminist I sympathize with the

16

ambitions to analyse the links between gender relations and IPV. Still, thinking from an anti-

categorical approach, researchers must also critically interrogate the categories we use and how

power relations are re-inscribed from our classifications. As McCall (2005, p. 1777) argues: “the

methodological consequence” of an anti-categorical approach is “to render suspect both the

process of categorization itself and any research that is based on such categorization, because it

inevitably leads to demarcation, and demarcation to exclusion, and exclusion to inequality.” In

this case it is relevant to explore what the consequences may be of the categorization and

demarcation of rural patriarchy and particular rural gender relations.

By using categorizations such as rural patriarchies researchers feed into particular

discourses on urban and rural regions and geographies. In the Swedish case, for example,

researchers have argued that Swedish rurality is largely negatively connoted and posited as

something problematic. In a representation analysis of the film The Hunters, Eriksson (2010)

underlines that the people of the rural North are represented as being everything the Swedish

capital of Stockholm and its urban inhabitants are not: backward, violent, racist, homophobic and

sexist. Stockholm and the Swedish urban inhabitants emerge as modern and progressive in

contrast to the rural inhabitants. Swedish researchers have, moreover, pointed to how a central

part of the popular discourse on Swedish rurality as problematic, non-progressive and backward

is in fact the image of the stereotypical gender relations of Swedish rural inhabitants. Rural men

particularly are represented as backward and unable to keep up with modern ideals of gender

equality (Eriksson, 2010; Stenbacka, 2011).iii Ethnographic studies by Dahl (2004) and Nordin

(2007) suggest that rural women are represented and understood as progressive and modern when

moving away from the countryside, whereas rural men are understood as “losers” who are left

behind and are unable to form modern gender-equal relationships with women (also Eriksson,

2008).

In a context where rurality is positioned as problematic, backward and non-progressive,

such as in the Swedish case, there is an evident risk that research on rural IPV that singles out

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rural geographies as marked by particular patriarchies and traditional gender relations may

contribute to the othering of rurality. It is possible to draw parallels here to how the suburb in

Swedish discourses is positioned as a problematic place within urbanity, and to how non-white

immigrant inhabitants of suburban locations are constructed as more gender-conservative and

reliant on patriarchal ideologies than white Swedes (de los Reyes, 2003; Bredström, 2002).

Swedish researchers on ethnicity and racism have pointed to how non-white minority populations

are “culturalized” and understood as more patriarchal and how, as a result, violence towards

women in these communities is understood as a natural consequence of culture (de los Reyes,

2003). The work of Said has contributed to our understanding of how the West has emerged as

enlightened, modern and progressive by making the Orient into its non-progressive other. As

Jansson (2003) indicates, local rural regions may in a similar fashion become “the internal other”,

which function to exalt the national identity and urban regions. Research focusing on IPV and

rurality could then become yet another way of locating violence somewhere else, this time in the

internal other, embodied in rural men and women. From an anti-categorical approach formulating

social policy on IPV and rural geographies may not only reinforce negative stereotypes of

“violent hillbillies” but also obscure IPV in urban localities since urban inhabitants are

understood to be more modern and gender equal, and as a consequence less violent. Thus,

generalizing understandings of “patriarchal ‘immigrant’ or ethnic minority cultures” as well as

“rural patriarchies” are not necessarily helpful to rural victims of violence. Violence instead

becomes naturalized and understood as an inherent part of the rural or “immigrant”/minority

culture.

The parallels to how non-white or other minority populations have been positioned as the

violent other also underline that the problems and risks of othering rural inhabitants are not new,

and that lessons may be learned from earlier discussions on intersectionality and violence (cf.

Bograd, 1999; Crenshaw, 1991; Davis, 2000; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005; Yllö, 2005). 1 Crenshaw

(1991, p. 1256) writes about the problems of dealing with violence in non-white communities out

18

of fear of contributing to racism, of “reinforcing distorted public perceptions”. It is possible to

consider how negative discourses on rural inhabitants may similarly hinder rural victims of

violence from revealing violence so as not to reinforce these discourses.

By pointing out how research on rural IPV runs the risk of othering rurality I do not wish

to dismiss the significance of existing studies on rural IPV. These studies have been of great

importance for putting the blind spot of rurality on the map in IPV research. However, from my

discussion on the risks of othering rurality I suggest that researchers must simultaneously engage

in anti-categorical analyses, which deconstruct and challenge unitary understandings of

rural/urban. Ruralities should be discussed not only as physical places but just as much as

“imagined communities” that are socially and culturally constituted (Carrington & Scott 2008, p.

642 citing Anderson, 1991; Wendt 2009) While researchers such as DeKeseredy & Schwartz

(2009) have pointed to how romanticized positive discourses of peaceful and idyllic ruralities

have obfuscated IPV in rural communities, these researchers have failed to acknowledge the more

negative discourses existing on rurality, where IPV is understood as part and parcel of backward

rural culture. Intersectional feminist research that highlights the relevance of local place and

urban/rural geographies for studies of IPV must continuously clarify how urban and rural

categories are associated with power/knowledge, where urban often come to represent the

modern and progressive and rural the traditional and backward.

Bringing geography into the intersectionality: concluding discussion

The aims of this article have been, firstly, to point to the need to include rural and urban

geographies in feminist intersectional studies of IPV and, secondly, to discuss the risks of

othering rurality when highlighting rural IPV. From a review and discussion of existing work on

rural IPV I have suggested that this work could be categorised as intersectional analyses that are

“intra-categorical”, which highlights positions which are made invisible in current research.

Studies on IPV have, on the one hand, predominantly focused on urban locations, and rural

research has, on the other hand, not been preoccupied with IPV, which leaves rural victims of

19

IPV unheard and unseen. Still I am critical towards how the majority of research on rural IPV

does not problematize meanings of rurality. Rural geographies are primarily discussed as material

and physical places, and little discussion exists on how rural place also shapes within specific

discourses. Drawing on the Swedish example I argue that when rural geographies are negatively

represented as backward research that uncritically employs notions such as “rural patriarchy”

may contribute to the othering of rurality. For this reason I propose that research on rural IPV

must move between intra-categorical and anti-categorical approaches, where the latter

deconstructs rural and urban as categories and locate local geographies within discourses of

power and knowledge. My proposition resonates the argument of Mehrotra (2010), who suggest

that feminist social work scholarship must engage with a continuum of intersectionality

theorizing from a wide range of epistemological positions. Below I will make some brief remarks

on what I consider to be the implications of my discussion to future research in feminist social

work and to feminist social workers in the field.

Shifting between intra and anti-categorical approaches requires a great deal of

epistemological flexibility from researchers. Rurality and urbanity may, on the one hand, be used

as categories for strategic uses, to point to structural differences between different geographies,

for example in terms of inequalities related to class, poverty and lower educational attainment in

some rural regions and how this links to IPV. At the same time it is necessary to also embrace a

position where the categorization of rural and urban is problematic and leads to demarcation. In

short, intersectional analyses on rural and urban geographies must simultaneously treat rural and

urban as both “real” and “not real”.

While I understand the intra-categorical approach to reflect on the omissions of current

research, in this case the invisibility of local geographies, I understand the anti-categorical

approach to reflect on the omissions of one’s own research practices. Similarly to how studies on

women and femininity can contribute to the naturalization and invisibility of men and

masculinities, and how gay and lesbian studies can contribute to the invisibility of

20

heterosexuality, a focus on the rural can contribute to the invisibility and reinforcement of an

invisible urban norm, where urbanity is never discussed in terms of place. When focusing on IPV

in rural areas, we as feminist social work researchers must constantly ask: in what ways do we

contribute to images of this place as deviant and to what extent to we (re)render urban place

continuously invisible, unproblematic and taken for granted (cf. Stenbacka 2011)?

Furthermore, to bring local geographies into intersectional analyses in feminist social

work requires us to think a bit differently. To date, intersectional studies on domestic violence or

IPV have focused primarily on the intersections of race, ethnicity and gender and to some extent

on those of class, age, sexuality and disability (Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005; Ekström 2013 f.c.)

These are all linked to acknowledged power asymmetries such as sexism, racism, classism,

ageism and ableism and homophobia. In comparison to race, class and gender, for example, it

may be less evident how urban/rural geographies are also linked to power and to societal

inclusion and exclusion. The socio-economic disadvantage of many rural regions, as discussed in

the review, is one potential example of marginalization. Differences between urbanity and

rurality are not only a matter of a distribution of resources, however, but are also linked to the

privileges of definition that come with being situated as either at the centre or at the periphery.

The omission of the voices of rural victims of IPV but also of rural social problems more widely,

as pointed out by Pruitt (2007; 2008) among others, could be understood as a reflection of this

peripheral position, outside the centre of knowledge production in feminist social work and

elsewhere. Still urban and rural geographies cannot be conceptualized as axis of oppression per

se, and for this reason I suggest that intersectional studies in feminist social work think of rurality

as imposing particular kinds of vulnerability to individuals. This parallels the discussion of

Brownridge (2009, p. 12ff) who proposes that researchers on IPV should focus on “vulnerable

populations” in contrast to the more traditional intersectional approach of looking at

“oppression/inequality” since vulnerable groups such as rural women are not necessarily

oppressed from rurality. Rurality imposes specific vulnerabilities that cannot be reduced to class,

21

gender or other, I argue, and by bringing regional geographies into intersectional analyses we as

scholars are thus more capable of understanding experiences of violence as well as other social

issues.

Evidently a great deal of the discussion in this paper has been about epistemology when

studying rural IPV, and this leads on also to questions of methodology. I do not suggest any one

particular methodological approach as the most feasible to study rural IPV. However, one study

which I find to successfully explore rural IPV is Wendt’s (2009) ethnographic study of an

Australian rural community, where she explores how the local rural culture influences women’s

experiences of, and men’s perpetration of, domestic violence. The strength of this research is how

it interrogates how the rural place is made sense of among rural inhabitants themselves, and what

the local constructions of violence are. Overall this study is less concerned with what rural culture

is and more concerned with “exploring the culture of particular rural communities” and how IPV

is enacted and responded to in different ways (Wendt 2009, p. 177). From my perspective this

kind of ethnographic study does not start with any fixed notion of rurality and IPV in rural culture

but studies local and volatile constructions of both IPV and rurality, and may as such allow for

both intra- and anti-categorical approaches.

The discussions of this article should not be seen as relevant only to researchers in

social work, but also of potential use to feminist social workers in the field. Intersectionality

is important to feminist social work practice since the lives of clients we encounter are indeed

shaped at the crossroads of various intersections. To improve practice on IPV knowledge on

how not only gender and gender relations but also geographical location impacts on IPV is

thus of great importance to feminist social workers. This knowledge could help to better

identify the particular vulnerabilities of victims of abuse who are living in diverse rural

locations. More concretely, if rural IPV involves a paradoxical situation of geographical

isolation while victims at the same time are less anonymous in the small community, feminist

social workers could aim to find specific strategies to confront this situation. This could, for

22

example, involve raising awareness in the rural community about IPV in order to make it

possible for victims to reveal abuse without feelings of shame and stigma and of letting one’s

community down. Strategies may also involve identifying ways in which informal social

networks could be mobilised to confront violence and help victims of abuse. If many people

in a small community know each other what are the positive and supportive social relations

that may be mobilised to stop IPV? If rural victims of abuse are in need of more help and

support from formal services due to multiple vulnerabilities while resources are scarce, as

researchers have argued, this is a serious issue that cannot be confronted by individual social

workers. Still, lack of resources may call for further discussions among social workers on

possible collaborations and coordination among existing services (cf. Wendt 2010). How

could, for example, local health resources, police and social services be more coordinated to

identify and challenge IPV in the community?

Feminist social workers’ attempts to find effective strategies to work with IPV in rural

communities must, moreover, be accompanied with social policies that highlight rural IPV as

a potential blind-spot. These social policies should reflect nuanced discussions on geography

and IPV, pointing to both similarities and differences between rural and urban IPV. Social

policy must, similarly to research, be formulated in ways which acknowledge power relations

between urban and rural geographies and how a singling out of rural IPV may contribute to

negative discourses about rurality.

I understand intersectionality as a theoretical, methodological and practical tool that

values a “’bottom-up’ approach”, starting in the experiences and lives of the most marginalized

(Association for Women’s Rights in Development, 2004, p. 5). By bringing in regional

geographies and discussions on the differences between rural and urban geographies, feminist

social work could better understand the marginalization of subjects and how place may intersect

with class, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, age and many other social locations. This may in

23

turn contribute to increasing visibility and support for social workers working victims of IPV or

other vulnerable clients in rural areas.

Acknowledgments:

This article was funded with the aid of the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation

(Riksbankens jubileumsfond). The author would like to thank the participants at the Higher

Seminar, Department of Social work, Linköping University for comments on an earlier draft of

this article. A special thanks to Professor Margareta Hydén and Associate Professor Lucas

Gottzén, Linköping University, who have taken the time to give detailed feedback on the article.

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Footnotes

i I use the term intimate partner violence rather than domestic violence since I find it to be more

inclusive, also involving violence outside marriage and cohabitation; but also since the term IPV

is more in line with established Swedish terminology on domestic violence (compare to the

Swedish term “våld i nära relationer”). ii Articles on IPV in which rural or rurality are indicated as keywords or as part of the title do not

always explicitly discuss the potential differences or implications of rurality on cases of IPV.

Rather, rural is often used as a mere description of the location of the research. The research

literature discussed in this article, however, more explicitly deals with potential differences in the

rates and severity of IPV in rural and urban locations as well as contextual specificities in terms

of risk and protection factors for rural inhabitants.

iii This is the representation, for example, in the film The Hunters, but also in various Swedish TV

productions, as discussed by Stenbacka (2011). In her study of three TV series on rural Sweden,

she finds three different repertoires: rural as help-seeking and backward; rural as marked by

gender inequality; and rural as deviant. Stenbacka (2011) and Eriksson (2010) both emphasize

that these representations have consequences on the constructions of rurality in a wider sense and

also impact on the political agenda.